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This research explores violent and property crime rates in nonmetropolitan counties. It is argued that crime rates are lower in these counties because of higher levels of social integration. We test the hypothesis that predictors of crime from social disorganization theory exert different effects on violent and property crimes at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. We use a spatial lag regression model to predict the 1989-1991 average violent and property crime rates for these counties, taken from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The results show that a factor-analyzed index of resource disadvantage (poverty rate, income inequality, unemployment, percent female-headed households) has different effects on both violent and property crime at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. Contrary to expectations, we find that resource disadvantage exerts a greater positive effect on both violent and property crimes in nonmetropolitan counties that lost population between 1980 and 1990. Implications for theory and research are discussed.The recent decline in the national violent crime rate has received a great deal of attention. FBI data, however, show that this decline is largely a metropolitan phenomenon. Between 1991 and 1997, the rate decreased 21.75 percent; yet violent crimes increased by 3.93 percent in nonmetropolitan counties during the same period (U.S. Department of Justice 1998). Metropolitan/nonmetropolitan differences in both crime levels and trends underscore the point that more structural and macro-level research on nonmetropolitan crime rates is needed (Bachman 1992;Laub 1983;Osgood and Chambers 2000). Moreover, these metropolitan/nonmetropolitan

The Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) is a national population survey of religious characteristics, orientations, and attitudes modeled after the General Social Survey. This article provides an overview of the content of the 2005 BRS along with a detailed description of our methods of data collection and some descriptive characteristics from our sample of 1,721 adults in the United States. A third of the survey is dedicated solely to religion items focusing on affiliation, identity, belief, experience, and commitment. Two‐thirds of the survey is dedicated to topical modules that will be rotated in subsequent administrations. We briefly describe the content of these modules and discuss how our data compare to the 2004 General Social Survey.

Some have argued that moralistic considerations trump other factors in determining attitudes toward criminal punishment. Consequently, recent research has examined how views of God influence sentiments regarding criminal punishment. Using the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) 2005, we find that (a) angry and judgmental images of God are significant predictors of punitive attitudes regarding criminal punishment and the death penalty and (b) images of God as loving and engaged in the world are not consistently significant predictors of attitudes toward criminal punishment, once measures of God’s perceived anger and judgment are considered.

Throughout the course of the Iraq War, the Bush Administration has consistently framed its war policy in religious language. Therefore, we investigate the extent to which public religiosity predicts neoconservative foreign policy attitudes. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

In this analysis, the authors use Greeley's "religion as poetry" model to frame an analysis of images of God and trust among the highly religious. Using the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, the authors regress four ordinal measures of social trust on two images of God measures and a bank of religion and demographic controls. The authors find that having a loving image of God creates greater levels of trust in all four measures among the highly religious. They also find that having an image of God as angry creates less trust in all four measures of trust. Implications for theory and research on trust and civic engagement are discussed in the conclusion.

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Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one's neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within religious communities, however, has questioned the importance of theology as a motivation to volunteer (Putnam and Campbell, in American Grace. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2010 ; Lewis et al., in Soc Sci Res 42: 331–346, 2013 ). In this paper we test the effects of a religious adherent's image of God's disposition toward the world on their pattern of community volunteering. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey and multinomial logit models, we find that having an image of God as judgmental lowers the odds that religious adherents report having volunteered for the community independent of their place of worship. Adherents who are most willing to engage the external community independent of a place of worship are those with less judgmental images of God. We also find that embeddedness is associated with volunteering for and with the place of worship in the community. Implications for theory, research and social capital formation are discussed.